Leave a Trail (Signal Bend #7)(132)

“Tasha, you have to go. Can’t Jerri Rae take her to the hospital if she gets worse?”

“The hospital is an hour away, and she drives that ancient clunker. Things can go wrong fast with a baby, especially one with Tiffany’s problems. I need to stay. I’ll go in two weeks.”

Lilli slammed her hand on the table, making everything on it rattle, and getting Marie’s attention at the counter. “Tasha! Jesus! You have to go! How is Jerri Rae’s kid more important than your old man!”

“She’s not! But she could die if she takes a turn, and I am her doctor. I took an oath.”

“You took a vow to Len, too!”

Tasha’s eyes went cold and hard. “Lilli, you need to step back, now. Len and I talked about stuff like this. He will understand, and he’s the only person I give a f*ck about understanding. So back off.”

Lilli threw herself back against the booth seat and scowled at her coffee. They sat in silence, neither drinking or even moving.

“Lilli, I’m sorry. I don’t want to fight with you. You’re the only person who gets what this is like. We need to be okay, you and me.”

“Then come this weekend.”

Tasha huffed in frustration. Not for the first time since they’d sat down and started this talk, Lilli pushed back the urge to just slug her across the table.

“You’re projecting.”

Oh, yeah. That punch was looking really likely. Lilli glared. “Is that bullshit left over from your psych rotation in med school?”

Tasha didn’t take the bait. “I think you’re afraid if you miss even one visit, Isaac will worry that you’re drifting away from him. But Lilli, you know that’s not true. He knows what you have. He’s stronger than that, and you know it.”

That was willfully reductive reasoning, as far as Lilli was concerned. It wasn’t about whether Isaac was strong enough to go without a visit. It was that he shouldn’t need to be. “They need us.”

“Yeah, they do. And we need them. Seeing Len like that breaks my heart. Visiting days are the best and worst days all at once.” She pushed her coffee cup and saucer to the side and leaned in. “It’s been six months. We have another five and a half years of this—if they get parole the first time it comes up. Do you honestly think you’re going to be able to drive three hundred miles each way every other weekend and never miss one the entire time?”

Lilli leaned in and spoke with all the certainty and determination she could muster—and that was a significant amount. “Yes. If I could see him more than that, I still would not miss a visit. If, God for-f*cking- bid, he’s inside longer, I still will not miss a visit.” Slithering up the wall of her mind was the thought that they had two children, either of whom might be sick on a visiting weekend, or might have some sort of important function that weekend. But she turned away from that thought.

They stared at each other again. Then Tasha nodded. “Okay. Okay. I understand. It would be great if you’d understand that Len and I have talked some other scenarios through, too. I don’t need you to understand, but it would be great if you would try. I’m not coming this weekend. I’ll be with you next time.”

For reasons beyond her full comprehension, Tasha’s missing a visit with Len made Lilli feel desolate.





X


The 325th Day



As they’d done almost every year that Lilli had been in Signal Bend, the Horde had a big Thanksgiving feast for the town. The old ladies, as always, worked together, preparing the meal, managing the girls, taking care of the children—and now little Henry had joined their growing brood.

But Shannon ran things now. In truth, she was born for the role. She had changed things up a little from the way Lilli had done them, but she’d been careful and respectful of Lilli, of their friendship, and Lilli didn’t begrudge her at all.

That didn’t mean it was easy to be in this clubhouse without Isaac, to be here knowing that someone else—even Show—wore the President’s patch. She had been comfortable in her life as the Horde’s First Lady. Now, everything felt askew. She didn’t know what her place really was. So she’d been staying away from the clubhouse except for those events, like today, for which she couldn’t come up with a decent reason to avoid.

When her disquiet got so strong she thought she’d just pack up the kids and go home and have sandwiches for Thanksgiving, she’d look over to the couches, where the kids were all sitting together—Gia, Bo, Loki, Millie, and Joey—with toys spread out and a Disney movie on. Henry was just tiny and doing the crowd-surfing thing, everybody taking their turn with him.

Every time Lilli looked for her kids, there were at least a couple of uncles sitting with them and the others, playing or just watching the movie, holding one of them on their knees. Gia and Bo loved it here.

She’d been keeping them away from a place they loved. She was going to have to find her way back. It was time.

Later, sitting at the table as Show stood at the head preparing to carve, Lilli felt a pang. Isaac had been furiously emphatic that his children would never spend a single holiday in a prison visiting room. Nor would they spend a holiday without their mother. Their argument about it had been so heated that a guard had warned them twice.

Isaac had assured her that if she ignored him and showed up anyway, he would not come to the Visitor’s Center. He would not be responsible for his children’s holiday memories being of a stark room with a couple of paper decorations taped halfheartedly to reinforced-glass windows.